UTA trustees OK stricter conflict-of-interest policy

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Transit Authority trustees Friday passed a more stringent rule to guide their own behavior around transit-oriented developments.

The conflicts-of-interest policy at UTA now matches a law passed last spring at the Legislature, prohibiting trustees from owning property at or near such developments. If they do, they must either resign from the board or sell the land.

The new policy will help alleviate concerns that trustees are "feathering our own nest," said Bruce Jones, UTA general counsel and president of government resources, shortly after trustees passed the policy.

The former conflicts-of-interest policy required trustees to sign disclosure forms about property and business interests near UTA stations and refrain from voting on matters near those properties.

The change does not affect all properties, just those near transit-oriented developments, which are mixed-use retail, residential and office complexes UTA wants built up and down its railroads. The new policy also does not change the status of trustee Terry Diehl, who last year tried to help build a transit-oriented development in Draper and donate about 10 acres to UTA for a future FrontRunner station platform.

"If that law would have been in effect then, he would have had to step down or backed away from the conflict," Jones said.

The developer, Whitewater VII, sold out of the development, and the transit-oriented development location is no longer where it was first envisioned — 250 environmentally sensitive acres near 13500 South and the Jordan River that contain artifacts from a 3,000-year-old Native American winter camp.

In March, when the Legislature passed SB272 to allow UTA to become a transit-oriented development partner, a section was added to the bill forcing trustees to leave the board if they get involved with transit-oriented developments.

Diehl's involvement in the development drew criticism and a request from Rep. Janice Fisher, D-West Valley City, for an audit. In May, a legislative subcommittee ordered that the Office of the Legislative Auditor General conduct a "mini audit" to determine whether a more extensive audit of the development was necessary. The audit hasn't been completed.

Trustee Chairman Greg Hughes, who also represents Draper as a Republican member of the Utah House of Representatives, said the new policy is stricter "than anything we have at the Legislature" to deal with real or potential conflicts of interest.

Typically, legislators are expected to declare conflicts of interest, but those conflicts do not excuse legislators from voting.

Hughes owns property near the 900 South TRAX station, but that land was purchased before he was a trustee and it's not a transit-oriented development, making it allowable under the new rules.

Longtime government watchdog Claire Geddes, who has questioned trustees' conflicts of interest, said she doesn't see the change in policy as monumental.

"That's the way it should have been anyway," Geddes said. "What they're doing is what they have to do: They're following the law. Whoopee. We're supposed to be impressed?"

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